


to have and to hold

by Meatball42



Series: Rare Pairs [164]
Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Character(s) of Color, Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Secret Relationship, Somnophilia, Touch-Starved, Trauma, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:13:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25325944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meatball42/pseuds/Meatball42
Summary: He shivers when she touches him, and not like her other lovers have shivered when she’s touched them.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Shuri
Series: Rare Pairs [164]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/365729
Comments: 4
Kudos: 41
Collections: Battleship 2020, Battleship 2020 - Red Team





	to have and to hold

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for very dubious consent.

He shivers when she touches him, and not like her other lovers have shivered when she’s touched them.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, it’s okay,” he insists, but it looks like he’s forcing himself to stay still, and that’s not okay.

“Bucky,” she chides. She takes a small step back, lets her hands fall away from his sides.

He reaches back out to her, steps closer. “No- it’s okay, really. Really, pl-” He cuts himself off.

Bucky has good manners, he says please and thank you for all the standard things, please-pass-me-the-naan, please-excuse-me. But he never asks for things that aren’t already his.

He should know that this is already his, if he wants it.

Shuri touches him again, stands close so that her body is flush with his, and he shivers, and he looks like it’s hard, but he also holds her tightly, maybe too tightly.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and it’s not good manners this time.

Technically no one knows about them, but Shuri is a princess, and what this actually means is that Mama knows and the Dora know, but T’Challa doesn’t and only some of the household staff know. Bucky stays in Shuri’s rooms some nights, but he has his own room in another wing that he sleeps in enough to make it worth keeping.

He insists on keeping it, and some nights he goes there early, carefully avoiding Shuri’s touch. She doesn’t push. She’s young, but she’s seen her tribe’s warriors after they retire. She knows enough.

Some nights he stays with her, but won’t come to bed. He sleeps in a chair, or on a sofa, or he doesn’t sleep. And some nights he stays firmly on the other side of the bed. And some nights, more often lately, he’ll sleep beside Shuri, wrapped around her or letting her wrap around him, as much as she can.

And some mornings they wake up with the dawn and he can still handle being touched. Some mornings he kisses her like she’s an oasis and he’s dying of thirst. They strip off their clothes and explore each other’s bodies, each other’s desires, learn each other’s joy. 

Shuri gets used to being able to love him. Too used to it.

One morning, she wakes up early. The sun is still a glow behind the mountains, but Shuri is wide awake and she wants Bucky. She goes under the blankets and folds back his robe, takes him into her mouth, sucking slow and wet, getting hotter as he hardens and lengthens on her tongue. She’s holding his muscled thighs, and in her enthusiasm she squeezes.

Something hits the side of her head and she's thrown to her side before she figures out what happened. Bucky is standing, hands running over his own body, his eyes wide and terrified like she hasn’t seen in months.

He looks betrayed, which she’s never seen.

And he’s out the door before she can blink through the pain and come up with something to say.

  
  


Bucky stays away from her for a week.

It’s an awful week. Shuri has enough time to think over her actions and feel guilty and horribly tender and to miss Bucky and to be afraid that she’s driven him away and will never get him back. She spends a lot of time in her lab, invents a whole new method of transmitting encrypted material through organic transistors. She doesn’t sleep until she can crawl into bed and fall unconscious immediately.

Bucky is at the family dinner that Mama insists on. Shuri has avoided her family well, and they ask her about her bruised eye. Shuri looks down at the table as though she’s embarrassed and mumbles something about a mishap in the lab. Mama scolds her to be more careful and T’Challa looks smug when Mama’s not paying attention, payback for all the times Shuri told him to not take so many risks.

Nakia isn’t fooled. She shakes her head and tuts quietly, and Shuri knows she wants to have a talk, but she shakes her head. This isn’t something she can discuss with her big sister yet. Maybe not ever.

Bucky doesn’t look up from his food.

She follows him out of the hall when he asks to be excused, ignoring the looks from her family. She feels bad for the way he clearly wants to be away, but. She has to try. 

“I’m sorry,” she tells his stiff back. “Please. Will you give me a chance to make it up to you?”

He turns, and he’s so wary, of her, and she did that, she gave him a reason to distrust. She feels just as dirty as anyone who ever hurt him.

He nods, but doesn’t say anything, and walks away.

Her bed feels so cold that night.

  
  


He gives her the chance she asked for. They start over: walks in the forest, sitting on a hill and watching the rhinos training, going out on a boat on the river. They work back up to holding hands when they walk, leaning together when they sit. He shakes again, when she touches him, but that goes away again.

She hugs him one night, in front of her rooms before he goes back to his, and he hugs her back. Shuri holds him as tightly as she thinks he’ll allow and wishes for more, so much it feels like her heart will jump right out of her chest and into his arms.

He kisses her shoulder when they sit in the stands and watch some city kids playing football on a hot day. He lets her kiss his lips on a balcony overlooking the river, when they’re both stuffed full of a rich dinner and the smell of lilies in bloom is heavy around them.

He falls asleep on her couch one night, and Shuri comes out of her bedroom in the morning and sees him there. That’s when the desperation that has lived in her chest loosens its grip and slips away, because Bucky’s trust is more valuable than his body, and she has what she needs.

She orders his favorite breakfast and makes some tea to drink until he wakes up.


End file.
